


The 13 1/2 Lives of Sherlock Holmes

by orphan_account



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crack, M/M, Post-Reichenbach, that's it really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-17
Updated: 2013-06-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>crack!fic</p>
            </blockquote>





	The 13 1/2 Lives of Sherlock Holmes

**Author's Note:**

> this is probably more gen than s/j, but every fic I write has them romantically involved, so just roll with it

Thinking back, John actually shouldn’t have been surprised, knowing Sherlock. But he was, because let’s face it: it wasn’t every day your late best friend turned up at your door three years after his passing and claimed to be back from the dead.

It was all a little confusing.

After they’d cleaned up the shards of china from where John had dropped his mug of tea, and John had hyperventilated for a full eight minutes, they sat facing each other, and John demanded to know what the hell was going on. Which was understandable, really.

Sherlock just sighed, the way he always did when John had said something he deemed unbearably stupid. John did not think he was being stupid. He’d seen enough bodies at the morgue to know that when people were dead, _they usually stayed dead._ Then again, Sherlock was always defying expectations.

“I’m part of a race of evolved humans,” Sherlock explained, like that was something you found out every day and, you know, wasn’t life-altering in the slightest.

“Gee, thanks,” John replied sarcastically. “I understand what’s going on now. I’m all caught up. Thank you.”

“If you would let me finish…”

“Yeah, fine, go on then.”  

“We’re not that rare: there are approximately a thousand of my race left on earth. The logic and deduction is a common part of it. The gene make-up suppresses the part of the brain that stores emotions, making us less likely to be ruled by our hearts. But we do _have_ emotions. The reason I don’t actually know that much about the Solar System is that, technically, it’s not my own. My father was from another galaxy. They came here around a hundred years ago and blended in with humans for a great number of years before leaving again.”

“Okay, thanks for the history lesson, but seriously: _how the fuck are you back from the dead_?” It wasn’t like John was ready to believe this explanation, but everything felt so surreal anyway that he was willing to roll with it.

“I was getting to that part. Patience is a virtue, John.”

“I’ve been waiting _three years_ for you to come back!” John protested, vaguely thinking that he probably shouldn’t aggravate a half alien who probably had super-powers or something but dammit this was Sherlock and he was _never_ going to stop yelling at Sherlock.

“Actually, you weren’t waiting,” Sherlock said. “You thought I was dead.”

“That’s because _you were_.”

“I was, for a day or so. But my people have twenty-seven lives.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, I’m not. I have thirteen and a half. This is my third. I died first from a heroin overdose, and secondly from jumping off a building.”

“Yeah, I sort of watched that second one happen,” John said dryly, ignoring the tears that pricked his eyes—more out of habit than anything—at the memory.

“Right. The thing is, once we’re dead, we don’t just wake up. We sort of…start somewhere else. I started in Russia.”

“It took you three years to get from Russia to here?”

“No.”

“Then…”

“Stop interrupting me.”

John tilted his head and lapsed into a grudging silence.

“I had to track down Moriarty’s cronies first. They’re all dead, so now you’re safe,” Sherlock stated. “They were quite difficult to find, I’ll admit.”

“So…what happens? Do you start up where you left off? You’re still the same age, right?”

“Not exactly. Each of our lives has the same span as a human’s, should we not do anything stupid like—”

“Commit suicide,” John interrupted again, not being able to resist.

“Yes. We do have a degree of choice from which human ‘age’ we start from. I am, for all intents and purposes, three years old.”

“Right. Okay. Gimme a minute.”

If he hadn’t known that Sherlock didn’t joke (and didn’t understand the purpose of pranks), John would have been sure that there were cameras and that he was about to star on TV for being the most gullible idiot to ever exist. But, then again, he’d _seen_ Sherlock’s dead body, had felt his lost pulse, so he supposed he could be excused for thinking that this was actually the most logical explanation.

He took a deep breath.

“So, how can you have half a life?” he inquired, keeping his tone neutral.

“It is exactly half the life-span of a human,” Sherlock shrugged.

“Humans don’t have fixed life-spans,” John argued. “No matter how healthy you are, some people live until they’re eighty, and some die at forty.”

“You never understand, John. The half life-span of a human is not measured by years, but rather the transition of childhood into adulthood. The true span of a human’s life is the time it takes them to reach maturity.”

“What are you going to tell everyone?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock replied.

“We’ll figure it out. I think Anderson’s already got a couple of theories.”

“…Together?” Sherlock asked, a bit of trepidation creeping into his tone. John wondered if Sherlock was honestly considering the possibility that John would turn his back on him now.

“Together,” he affirmed.

It was better that way.

**Author's Note:**

> tbh this makes more sense than some of the theories we ACTUALLY got  
> like, i'm not saying sherlock is half-vuclan but he sort of is
> 
> (tumblr: oopshidaisy)


End file.
